FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT IRENE ROSENFELD - PAGE 2

Less than three months since the spin-off, Mondelez International is already rewarding its CEO for a job it considers well done. The company said in a filing Friday that Irene Rosenfeld was granted a "special equity reward" of $10 million in restricted and performance-contingent stock from the human resources committee on Dec. 19. The committee said it was awarding the grant to reward Rosenfeld for delivering top-tier performance during her...

Roger Deromedi, the former chief executive of Kraft Foods Inc., will become chairman of a food manufacturing company being created by the acquisition of Pinnacle Foods Group Inc. Pinnacle, the privately held owner of Duncan Hines baking mixes, Vlasic pickles, and Hungry Man and Swanson frozen dinners, said Monday it has agreed to be acquired in a $2.16 billion deal led by the Blackstone Group. Blackstone will pay about $1.3 billion in cash and assume $900 million of Pinnacle debt.

Irene Rosenfeld, tapped this week to be chief executive of Kraft Foods Inc., will see her base salary rise 60 percent over the pay she collected as Frito-Lay chairman and CEO. And her total package could be worth as much as $27 million, more than double what departed Kraft CEO Roger Deromedi collected last year for running the nation's largest food company. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Northfield-based Kraft reported Thursday it will pay Rosenfeld a base salary of $1.3 million.

Kraft Foods Inc. has become a much more global company with the acquisition of Cadbury, but persistent penny pinching in the U.S. took some of the luster from second-quarter sales. For the quarter ended June 30, Kraft reported earnings up 13 percent, to $939 million, or 53 cents per diluted share, beating the Wall Street consensus by a penny. Revenue surged 25 percent, to $12.25 billion, but fell short of the consensus of $12.33 billion. "As you heard from so many companies, the global economy is tough, and the consumer environment continues to be weak in many markets," Kraft's chairman and chief executive, Irene Rosenfeld, said in a call with analysts.

Irene Rosenfeld, in her first public comments since becoming chief executive of Kraft Foods Inc. in June, didn't mince any words Monday in her analysis of a somewhat lackluster quarterly financial report. "I was really not pleased with the overall [sales] performance," she said, adding that the nation's largest food company needs to spread growth across its entire portfolio of products. Like her predecessor, Roger Deromedi, who attempted to prime the development pump by building new test kitchens, Rosenfeld also said Kraft needs to be introducing more new products.

Kraft Foods chief executive Irene Rosenfeld pointed to increased marketing investment, reduced overhead, and an improved new product pipeline to persuade analysts the two companies she plans to create at the end of 2012 will be more competitive than the larger company is today. The Northfield-based maker of Oreo, Wheat Thins, Capri Sun and Oscar Mayer plans to split into an $18 billion North American grocery business, and a $35 billion global snacks company by December 31. Grocery will snag products like Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, Miracle Whip and Planters, while the snacks company will take products like Oreo, Chips Ahoy, and Trident gum, although the company is still finalizing some of these decisions.

Irene Rosenfeld, chairman and chief executive of the newly independent Kraft Foods Inc., said Monday that much remains to be done to make the company an attractive investment. "There is no question that we've got a lot of work to do," she said in an interview. "In the coming months we will just begin to tell our story and make investors feel that much more comfortable as an investment." But Rosenfeld added: "We feel terrific. We feel very confident that the plans in place are going to deliver long-term shareholder value."

* Kraft's third quarter EPS $0.79, revenue $4.61 bln * Mondelez EPS $0.37, revenue $8.3 billion * Mondelez cites executional issues in Brazil, Russia By Martinne Geller Nov 7 (Reuters) - Kraft Foods Group Inc and Mondelez International Inc both stood by their full-year 2013 forecasts on Wednesday in their first earnings reports as standalone companies following last month's breakup. Kraft, home to brands like Oscar Mayer lunch meat and Maxwell House coffee, said it was working to better tailor its product portfolio to a weak economy in North America, the only region in which it now operates.

Altria Group Inc. is expected on Wednesday to announce the terms of the long-awaited spinoff of its stake in Kraft Foods Inc., prompting many shareholders to line up their exit positions in the foodmaker. Several analysts predicted Monday that shares will fall in the short term, saying Northfield-based Kraft will need to present a clear plan for growth before it will become attractive to investors. Kraft's new chief executive, Irene Rosenfeld, is expected to present her plan at an analysts conference next month.

In the face of higher commodity costs, Irene Rosenfeld, chief executive of Northfield-based Kraft Foods Co., acknowledged Thursday that the company passed along price increases to consumers during the third quarter, and she expects competitors to follow suit. "Costs are going up for everyone," Rosenfeld said during a conference call with analysts after Kraft reported third-quarter earnings of 47 cents per share, as sales rose 26.6 percent, to $11.9 billion. Analysts had expected earnings per share of 46 cents.